Útil y muy ameno vocabulario para entender a los mexicanos

I might have to get me one of these. Especially since, as the subtitle indicates, "incluye muchos chilanguismos."

A Love Song for Academia (that's capital A!)

Some weeks the Chicago song "You're the Inspiration" could accurately describe my feelings toward Academia. I think in that scenario I'm the guy on the left with the glasses and his shirt half-way open singing the song to academia. I'm not just singing, I'm playin' the keyboards and rocking my late 70's early 80's man-bangs. Because DANG, "You're the beating of my heart, you're the inspiraaaaaaaaation". I even sometimes have a Karate Kid II moment and want to comfort academia by singing to it that "I am the man who will fight for your honor...!!!!!"

However, there are some weeks where I feel more like the Chicago song "Hard to say I'm Sorry" better describes how I feel about the field that I (¿unwisely?) chose. I mean, check these lyrics out, don't some of you feel the same way every other week?

"Everybody needs a little time away, I heard her say, from each oooooooooother. Even lovers need a holiday, far away from each ooooooooother!" Hold me know, it's hard for me to say I'm sorry. I just want you to stay. After all that we've been through, I will make it up to you, I promise you."

I don't know if the "her" in this song is academia telling me it needs a holiday from me, or if I'm the her telling academia that we need some time "far away from each oooooooooother!" But either way, I don't know of any other song that captures the love-hate relationship many of us have with academia. Regardless, it's obvious that we need a break. At least that's how I feel today. In the mean time, dig some sweet tunes from Chicago.

me grading midterms at my office on a friday night

"Rachmaninoff on a Wednesday Night" or "A Self-Absorbed Remembrance on Rachmaninoff"

This post could be extremely long, but I'll give you the short version. Part of the reason I want to be a university professor is so that when I'm older and I don't have to worry about tenure, I can, again, take trumpet lessons and continue to learn other languages (read, Russian). I love Russian classical music. I used to want to travel to Russia to hear the Bolshoi Symphony Orchestra (still do). When I was an aspiring musician I used to spend long hours by myself listening to the Russians (didn't have many friends, still don't). In the music library at the community college I would try to listen to albums while looking at a score of the piece I was listening to so that I could see how they made a certain sound, or how a particularly moving chord progression was put together. Of all the Russian composers, Shostakovich is my favorite and Rachmaninoff is a very close second. Rachmaninoff wrote a well known piece called Vocalise (Op. 34, No. 14); if memory serves right, it was written as a vocal exercise with piano accompaniment. When I was in junior college my trumpet teacher gave me the sheet music for Rachmaninoff's exercise arranged for Trumpet and piano. I loved playing that piece but I was always challenged by my (lack of) range, I didn't know how to support the higher register and push the air through so the long build up to the notes above the staff was difficult. I was also 6' tall and weighed in at 135 lbs, so I may not have had enough muscle to push as much air through as I needed (though that is just an apologists rereading of history). Regardless, I loved playing Vocalise. Now that Shaunie has a nice digital Claviona and I have a decent trumpet (and I think I've learned how to move the air better) eventually we will get around to playing Rachmaninoff together. I assure you that it won't sound as good as this performance by Vadim Novikov (who better than a Russian trumpet player with a rich, dark tone to play Rachmaninoff?), but we will be making music none the less.

This is hilarious

Philosophy 216

If you ever think it might be a good idea to take a graduate course in philosophy, it's probably not. Especially if your job is to read and analyze literature. In that case you will likely be extremely confused (unless you are a certain group of literary scholars I know, all three of which went to Cornell). Not only are the ideas discussed in the class confusing, but the very terminology and the method used to discuss those ideas are perplexing. This is me on the Tuesday evening of my wedding anniversary. If I would have been smart and not gone to grad school, I could be taking my wife out to dinner right now instead of sitting here feeling confused during the break of my philosophy course. The moral of the story? Don't go to grad school, take your wife to dinner instead.

Ben: 0 - Philosophy: 1

The best eight years...

Copyright Diane Brinkerhoff Photography

Happy Anniversary to my best freind the love of my life! Mushy, mushy, xoxo, etc.

Beyond 1984...but still kind of in 1984

Sean Connery as Zed, wearing a bizarre costume that
seems to be inspired by the campesino dress of the
Mexican Revolution (there is a definite connection
there that you'll notice if you watch the trailer). 

Some of you may remember that on my/our now defunct film blog I once posted a trailer for what has to be one of the ten worst movies ever made, a 1974 John Boorman film called Zardoz. Starring in this monstrosity of a film is none other than James Bond, er Indiana Jones's dad, er Captain Ramius...I mean Sir Sean Connery. In case you missed it, here it is (I apologize in advance).

So why the horrible return of the repressed? Because I found this and I wish it were real, because I would totally get my game on for this:

California's Gold

See Four seasons in Yosemite

Brian Wilson takes you inside the Mind of his Beard

"It's quiet now and what it brings is everything..."

This morning I learned that if it's 5am and I've been up all night practicing German and reading Deleuze and Guattari, it's a good idea to listen to R.E.M. Should you find yourself  in these, or similar circumstances, I recommend this song, or this one. I only wish I could sing along without disturbing my wife and kids who are upstairs, sound asleep, dreaming in rhizomatic shades of fall...

© R.E.M. "Daysleeper"

...I told you, forever
I love you, forever
I told you, I love you
I love you, forever
I told you, forever
You never, you never
You told me forever...

Bomba Estéreo Take Away Show in Bogotá

Visuals & Editing by Vincent Moon

Sound & Mixing by Andres Velasquez

Produced by Vincent Moon & Simon Mejia

José Emilio Pacheco en un momento Borgeano

"El libro"
Lo compré hace muchos años. Pospuse la lectura para un momento que no llegó jamás. Moriré sin haberlo leído. Y en sus páginas estaban el secreto y la clave.

"The Book"
I bought it many years ago. I put off reading it for a moment that never arrived. I will die without having read it. And in its pages were the secret and the key. (translation my own)

...noise...

One year in 120 seconds from Eirik Solheim on Vimeo.